


heaven and hell and in between

by theprophetlemonade



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: (but will be canon divergent), Angst, Brief Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, Coda, Emotional Intimacy, Episode: Heavenly Fire, Episode: s03e17, M/M, Pain, Post-3x17, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-11 22:08:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18433082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theprophetlemonade/pseuds/theprophetlemonade
Summary: [He dreams of battlefield amputations, battlefield casualties. His magic lies amongst the dead in the rust-coloured field. George, brave George, is holding Magnus’ heart in bloodied hands, confused, hurt, betrayed, but it’s not George, not anymore; it’s Alec.]--Magnus, on the night that follows.3x17 coda.





	heaven and hell and in between

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mochiboom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mochiboom/gifts).



> angst me up, scotty

 

 

 

 

> "It should be enough. To make something beautiful should be enough. It isn’t. It should be."
> 
> \- Richard Siken,  _Landscape with a Blur of Conquerors_

 

* * *

 

 

Magnus’ head hurts. Pressure ebbs and flows against his temples, dull pulses that he feels spread like oil from the base of his neck round to the bridge of his nose, and he feels sticky with it. Stale whiskey and sharp champagne cling to his tongue, coat the backs of his teeth, feature in the acid reflux that he swallows back down his throat with a groan, rolling over on the bed and smothering his face in the pillow.  

 

The pillow smells like Alec. The sheets are cold. This is not his bed, not his home. This is grief like he has never felt before; endless, grey, guttural. Not sadness like he thought he knew. It’s not a chase, not a spiral; his heart doesn’t pound for it. It’s just … _flat_. A flat sea at dusk and a man who desires drowning.

 

And his head _hurts_ , dear God, dear Angel, dear whoever it is that might fucking listen - but as Ragnor used to say, such is the punishment for irrational, hysterical men who drink away their bad decisions.

 

Except, this wasn’t a bad decision, and perhaps that’s the worst of it.

 

 _I would do it again_ , Magnus thinks, _for Jace, for Alec, I would do it again, give up my magic, even it meant -_

 

Even if it meant dying. Even if it meant _this_.

 

The bed dips behind him. He doesn’t know how he got from the balcony to here, to Alec’s room, because the last few hours are all a blue. But Magnus knows Alec’s weight, Alec’s hovering presence, the way Alec thinks so loudly but never says a word, all without opening his eyes.

 

He would know it anywhere, but tonight, it smothers.

 

He feels Alec pause, sat there in dumb silence, watching as Magnus pretends to sleep, staring at his back.

 

_What is it that he sees? What remnants of Magnus Bane are still to be uncovered in the mess of all this?_

 

The duvet rustles. Alec pulls it up around Magnus’ hips, but his touch doesn’t linger. Magnus feels him sit back, drawing his hands into his lap, away, just watching -

 

Quiet.

 

The quiet is killing Magnus as much as he fears talking might. He screws up his eyes, hand curling in the pillow. Tension lances through his shoulders. Alec will see that too.

 

 _It wasn’t a bad decision_ , he repeats, and he has to tell himself that, over and over and over again, because he can’t stomach the pain that comes with realising that it _was_.

 

That’s the sort of pain he knows he won’t survive. Not in this mundane body. Not when he’s -

 

 _Lucifer_ , he can’t even say it, can’t even _think_ it.

 

Not when he’s mortal. When he’s not a Warlock. When his body feels so thin and damned and fragile that he hopes he might just wither away if he curls up in this bed and never finds the energy to get up again, something light enough to be tossed by the surge and the swell and the soft hiss of tide.

 

There is a saying that mundanes love the spectacle of suffering. Magnus has never really understood why.

 

The mattress creaks again as Alec stands. Still, he says nothing, and Magnus holds his breath, waiting for another sound, waiting for Alec to walk around the bed and crouch down in front of Magnus and force him to look and see himself reflected in the too-honest candor of Alec’s eyes.

 

Alec does not move. He remains, still, still as the dead, still as one of those damn pre-war gothic statues on the outside of the building, and then he sighs.

 

Sighs, steps back, his footsteps soft as he retraces steps towards the door.

 

He can’t honestly think Magnus is sleeping. Alec knows him too well for that. The door shuts behind him anyway.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Magnus’ eyes are dry, beginning to hurt. The skin beneath his lashes is brittle, his eyeliner smudged from pressing his face into Alec’s jacket on the balcony, caught on the torn edges of some devastating truths. He’s parched, wrung-out, unwilling, even now, to waste what little dignity he has left by staggering to the bathroom for a glass of water or a glimpse of himself in the mirror.

 

The bedroom is endlessly quiet. He’s still lying on his side, facing the wall, facing away from the door, facing away from where Alec would be, _should be_ , with his arm wrapped around Magnus’ waist, snoring softly. That side of the bed feels awfully cold.

 

Maybe Alec’s not coming back. Maybe he needs space, maybe he’s sat alone in his office with the lights off, maybe he’s beating a punchbag to a feathered pulp in the training hall. Maybe he’s sat just outside the door, back against the wall, knees drawn to his chest, staring at nothing in particular but picking at his hands.

 

Somehow, that’s the worst thing Magnus’ mind can conjure. Worse, even, than the thought of Alec having left entirely, off hunting shadows, chasing demons, doing whatever it is he can’t ignore - because _his_ world hasn’t stopped turning.

 

That’s only Magnus’.  

 

A dull ache is crawling through Magnus’ jaw, dripping down his neck where he clenches his teeth too tight, hard enough to shatter bone if he dares make a noise. His mouth, greasy with apologies. His knuckles, white, shivering, knotted into Alec’s dark blue sheets. There’s even a phantom stretch in his shoulders, wrapped in the memory of Alec holding him upright on that balcony and staggering backwards just to keep the both of them off the floor.

 

Alec’s hand against his back. Alec’s insistent fingers tugging at the collar of his jacket. Alec’s cheek pressed against his as he waited for Magnus to get his damn breathing back under control. His Alec, patient and foolish as always, so young, so out of his depth, so desperate to fix what can’t be fixed, save what can’t be saved.

 

So willing to blow up the ground beneath their feet, even if Magnus has long since had any ground to stand on. He floats; he exists, he does nothing more than just _this_. Lie here, long for sleep, and try to wade his way through a future so suddenly greyed out.

 

_And that’s no future at all._

 

The bedroom door creaks open, slow enough that Magnus knows someone is peering through to check that he’s still sleeping. He’s not, but it’s Alec, he can tell by the breathing, by the footsteps, by the hesitation. Magnus cannot miss the way his fingers loosen in the sheets, if only for a moment.

 

Alec’s steps approach the bed, pausing again before his knees hit the mattress, just to watch Magnus’ breathe.

 

 _Is he breathing normally? Does his chest rise and fall as it should?_ He’s never given it much thought before, but here is Alec, able to see right through him, save for when it matters.

 

Of course he sees through Magnus now, when he’s stripped bare and ugly. _Why not before, why not when I was struggling_ , Magnus cannot help but think, and the taste in his mouth is bitter, _why not before I was lying in that hospital bed -_

 

The thought fragments. He’s too tired to even finish it, too hurt, too guilty, and so he waits for the semi-dark to take the letters of the words he wants to shout, but can’t, and string them back together as something different. The good news is he survived. The bad news is that he’s hurt and the only person who can heal him is himself and somehow that feels worse. But the dark is damning, Alec’s silence is damning, and there's no way to pick the real meaning out of the things he wants to say.

 

It’s all a mess, the words are jumbled, he wants and wants and wants but cannot have. The night takes a few quick swipes at him, deep and painful, whilst he’s lying prone.

 

_Come over here, I need you, I need you more than I’ve needed anyone._

 

_Don’t look at me, don’t see me like this, don’t fall out of love with me._

 

Alec doesn’t settle onto the bed; instead, he walks around it, steps slow and measured and careful, and comes to a stop beside Magnus. Bourbon has a particularly unforgiving stench when left to soak into dress shirts, and this close, Magnus can smell it: on his own clothes, on Alec’s, he can’t be sure. Alec’s cologne is muddied by it; his warmth, diluted.

 

Magnus doesn’t want to see him like this. He doesn’t want that to be etched into his memory too, a companion for moments behind closed eyelids.

 

And so he waits, breath held, for Alec to appear at eye level and look at him in that horrible, sorrowful, endlessly soft way of his that makes Magnus’ heart split inside his chest - but Alec doesn’t do that either.

 

Always a surprise. Even now. The memory of laughter echoes like a song lost across a vast and boundless blue.

 

Alec sets a large glass of water down on the bedside table. Magnus’ throat longs for it, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth with how thirsty he is, how dehydrated after spilling it all into the shoulder of Alec’s dinner jacket, but he realises quickly: it’s not for drinking.

 

There’s a rose in Alec’s hand, pinched between his fingers, one from that beautiful centrepiece on the balcony that Alec had prepared just for them. The colour of its petals exists somewhere on the threshold between orange and red, ever changing from one blink to the next, the colour of  obscurity, the colour of a sunset, the colour of both desire and devotion.

 

Alec twirls it by the stem between his thumb and forefinger. Magnus cannot see his face, not unless he looks up from the pillow, and he doesn’t want to do that, he doesn’t want to move at all, but he does hear the reverberation of a sigh. And it’s another deep, bone-weary thing that makes Magnus _ache_ even more than before, but not quite as much as watching Alec drop the rose into the glass and walk away again.

 

Alec shuffles around the room like a ghost, afraid to make too much noise, afraid to take up too much space at all. Like he wishes he could wear the pain Magnus feels on his shoulders as a jacket; like he wants to taste the blood in Magnus’ mouth as if it were his own.

 

Like he’s afraid of Magnus waking from this daze and breaking apart again; of more shouting; of more crying; of holding Magnus in his arms and not knowing what to do. Alec fumbles with control; when he doesn’t have it, he falters. He forgets how to function. Magnus knows this well.  

 

Magnus stares at the rose as it faces him, the shape of the stem distorted through the water. He hears Alec discard his jacket over the back of his desk chair, toe off his shoes, and then disappear into the bathroom. The sound of the faucet gushing is white noise, but the shard of light that cuts through the room from the door left deliberately ajar is too much, and has Magnus turning over onto his stomach, hiding his face in the pillow. His breaths grow shorter, more difficult. He can’t lie this way for long without needing to come up for air.

 

Still, he holds out until the last possible moment.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He falls asleep and wakes again before Alec finishes in the bathroom, and his head feels all the worse for it. The dark makes him dizzy, the outline of the window distorted, the edge of the bed farther away than it really is. The rose on the bedside table is outlined in the chalky glow of yellow from the bathroom and a fainter glow from the window, and its petals seem to ripple, blurry around the edges, soft, maybe, to the touch, until his thumb might find a thorn.  

 

The bathroom door opens and light floods the room; Magnus recoils against it, murmuring a low curse through the thin line of his mouth. He expects the swell of steam and hot water to fill the air, the chemical smell of Alec’s Institute shampoo, but it never comes; it’s just the light, the tears pricking his eyes.

 

“Sorry,” Alec mumbles, somewhere out of reach where Magnus can’t see. The light disappears just as fast, the bedroom plunged into the swift cocoon of darkness. Magnus’ head spins, the blackness too black, too impenetrable. He grumbles, rolling over onto his side again, the mattress squeaking.

 

Alec is slow climbing into bed, but he doesn’t settle. He lies on his back, staring up at the ceiling, and the space between them is as loud and telling as ever.

 

He’s afraid to get close. Magnus can tell. _Eight hundred years alive, and that’s always been the case, hasn’t it -_

 

“Magnus.”

 

Magnus says nothing. He hates this, this dichotomy, the need to have Alec close but the repulsive want to shout at him, to demand _don’t look at me!_ because his skin is crawling with the thought of Alec pitying him as he does. He hates this lethargy, because he knows what comes after - (mania, hysteria, _weakness_ ; another hip flask full of whiskey to numb the pain) - and he doesn’t want to make a fool of himself twice in the space of the same damn night.

 

Doesn’t want Alec to see him cry again.

 

Doesn’t want anyone _other_ than Alec to see him cry again.

 

It doesn’t make sense. He can’t want for both.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Magnus dreams in fits and starts, forever caught between the moments of waking. Every time he shifts, his body falls out from beneath him, a stomach-rush that never abates, leaving him sick with the sensation of freefall.

 

He dreams of his mother; her keris; his father and his golden cat eyes in the dark. He dreams of Camille laughing at him (“I told you so, Magnus, don’t fall in love with a Nephilim”), of Camille pulling him back from the edge at Blackfriars Bridge, her eyes ablaze with fury and fear, always both, always at the same time.

 

He dreams of Catarina tied to that stake where they first met, the sugar-sweet smell of her magic going up in flames at odds with the way hair crisps and flays when it’s singed. He dreams of the jeers and the boos of the crowd, of the screams thereafter, of Ragnor rolling his eyes when Magnus recounted the story decades later. He dreams of Raphael’s tiresome sneer and of Madzie’s gleeful laugh.

 

He dreams of battlefield amputations, battlefield casualties. His magic lies amongst the dead in the rust-coloured field. George, brave George, is holding Magnus’ heart in bloodied hands, confused, hurt, betrayed, but it’s not George, not anymore, it’s Alec.

 

Magnus’ body is cold, then hot, then burned, burning, still on fire. The duvet lashed around his ankles is too tight, so he tries to kick it free, but it’s tangled; it won’t shift. He doesn’t have the energy to open his eyes and fix it, so he doesn’t. He lies there, back slick with sweat, and waits for sleep to pull him under again.

 

In his dreams, Alec’s red-wet hands plunge into the centre of him and find nothing resolute to hold. His fingers slip and slide across Magnus’ skin and then they come up empty.

 

Vaguely, distantly, he hears Alec calling his name, a different Alec, the press of a hand too hot to his forehead, but it’s faraway. Magnus tries to turn away from the touch, but he can’t. He won’t. He doesn’t want to.

 

This Alec’s hand does not pass straight through him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

The pillow is damp when he opens his eyes again, but the room is dark, still underwater. It’s still night time. Not that much time has passed at all, even though it feels like he’s been lying here for hours, maybe days, maybe years.

 

(And that’s an irony, because he has so little of those left, and here he is, wallowing, unable to even bring himself to _stand_ -)

 

Magnus presses his fingertips to his eyes and finds his cheeks wet too; he’s been crying again, and he only hopes it was quietly. He didn’t think he had any left in him.

 

There’s weight, returned, on the mattress beside him. Not the heavy, solid weight of someone lying down behind him, nor the gentle hiss of breath against the back of his neck; Alec is sat up against the headboard, his knees drawn up beneath the duvet. At least he’s under the duvet. At least he’s with Magnus in that way.

 

Magnus twists, just enough to be mistaken for the restlessness of uneasy sleep, just enough to look back at Alec. There’s dull, faintly-yellow city light creeping in through the slats in the blinds, and it highlights Alec’s face in profile, the Greek line of his nose, the purposeful just of his lower lip, the feather of his eyelashes as he blinks too rapidly. That light, it catches, too, on the strange silver box in his hands.

 

Alec is staring at it deliriously, a frown deeper than any Magnus has ever seen marked upon his forehead, and he’s turning the box over and over in his hands, rolling it between his palms. Magnus has never seen it before, but he can tell by Alec’s severity that Alec has, that Alec won’t let it out of his sight, that Alec might even resent it, whatever it is.

 

Bleary-eyed, Magnus lets his gaze drift: Alec hasn’t changed for bed. He looks like he hasn’t slept at all, still in that same midnight-blue shirt as before, as on the balcony, just a few more buttons undone. He’s long since lost the jacket, but Magnus wonders if he’s still in his pants, in his belt, in his socks beneath the covers. If he still has his stele in his pocket, and he’s just sitting here playing sentinel, playing guard, waiting for Magnus to do something volatile again that he’ll need to step in and stop.

 

Magnus hates himself for that. Hates himself for forcing Alec to _see_ that, that terrible, ugly side of his. Hates the flashes of panic that Alec has already compressed deep, deep down inside himself, where he’ll ignore it and it’ll fester as pity, or worse, _guilt_ , every time he so much as looks at Magnus over the next few days.

 

The next few days. Oh, the thought sickens him. It’ll be sunrise in a handful of hours and he’ll have to get up, get dressed, brush his teeth, pretend to everyone else that he’s fine, that he hasn’t noticed Alec’s glum mood, that they’re _both_ fine, it’s nothing to worry about. Only, all he wants is to lie here, listening to the blood rush through him with nowhere to go, never making any sense, as he stares at the ceiling and doesn’t blink until he has to.

 

It manifests as a noise in his throat, half a sob, half a defeated sigh. Wretched. He doesn’t want to pretend anymore. Not really. He’s splintered, fractured, and no amount of alcohol or wallowed bed rest can replace the pins needed to bolt his separate parts back together and keep him from letting water in or blood out. He can’t hide that now.

 

Magnus’ wrangled gasp makes Alec stop, snatching the small silver box into one hand as he looks over, suddenly on high alert. His eyebrows pinch together; the flash of panic is bright in his dark eyes. Magnus does not want to see that, so Magnus closes his eyes, burrowing back into the pillow, willing himself back to sleep, not to be seen, not to be judged.

 

“Magnus?” It’s a whisper, but already too loud. Alec shifts closer, lifting the duvet around himself as he straightens his legs and lowers himself carefully towards the mattess. Magnus feels a cold foot nudge against his own.

 

 _So, he’s_ not _wearing his socks_. Magnus was wrong.

 

“Magnus, hey,” Alec murmurs again, his voice closer this time. Magnus feels it dislodge the hair around his ear that isn’t already in disarray. Light fingertips press against the top of his arm, and then the base of his neck, and then his jugular. Alec feels for his pulse, perhaps on instinct alone.

 

It feels unbearably intimate and unbearably cruel.

 

Magnus lets out a shaky breath. He knows Alec hears it. Alec already knows he’s awake. Neither of them say anything; here, again, Magnus is speechless, rendered mute, but for all the wrong reasons. Words are too big for his mouth, too clumsy for his tongue, too vulgar to be allowed out of the stewing mess inside his chest right now.

 

Instead, he shuffles backwards, towards Alec, an unspoken request. Alec breathes out, the note shaky, dislodging the thick set of silence, kicking up dust and making Magnus’ heart twist once more. Alec quietens his hand against Magnus’ throat, laying his palm flat against the curve of Magnus’ neck. It’s a consecrated touch, reverent, gentle, a little scared.

 

Magnus feels a moment stepped back in time. A moment, months and lifetimes ago, when Alec was still too scared to touch him. _Have they really retreated all that way -_

 

But then Alec draws his fingers back, his touch trailing across Magnus’ shoulders, down Magnus’ spine, around the curve of his waist, just where Magnus needs it. Alec settles down onto his side and curls his arm around to Magnus’ chest, easing Magnus carefully back into the warm circle of his body, his arms, his smell, comforting -

 

And oh, Magnus feels so infinitesimally small, thin and clear enough to be devoid of his own shadow, barely nothing when the lights are out, barely solid, save for the small patch of skin where Alec’s hand comes to rest. An island in the flat grey sea. A life raft. A man standing at the end of the dock, gazing out into the impenetrable fog, waiting for Magnus to come sailing home.

 

Magnus’ eyes are wet again. He reaches up to press the heel of his palm against his eye socket, but Alec’s nose nestles into his hair, his breath tickling Magnus’ ear, and he hushes him.

 

“It’s okay,” Alec whispers, “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

 

 _It’s not_ , the petulant side of Magnus needs to argue, needs to scream, but Alec just squeezes him tighter. He presses his face into the crown of Magnus’ hair; he pulls Magnus in until his chest is lined up with Magnus’ back; he pushes his knee between both of Magnus’, tangling their feet beneath the sheets.

 

His chest rises and Magnus’ falls. Still out of sync, but slowing.   

 

“It’s okay,” Alec says again. _Just let it out._

 

 _What a terrible Shadowhunter_ , Magnus thinks. Emotions are a distraction not meant to be felt. Alec should hear himself. _Encouraging Magnus as he is -_

 

A singular sob lodges in someone’s throat. It takes Alec’s quiet intake of breath, trembling and vulnerable against Magnus’ ear, for them both to realise that it’s Magnus’.

 

“It’s okay.” Alec sounds broken too. “I’m … I’m here. I’ve got you.”

 

Alec’s knuckles press against Magnus’ stomach; his palm is not flat; he’s still holding that strange silver box and it’s a shock of cold against the sliver of Magnus’ skin. Alec is squeezing it so tight between his fingers that it’s going to leave red and angry criss-cross marks all over his palm come the morning. It must hurt. It must sting. Alec must feel it.

 

Of course he feels it. Alec functions on pain. There is no greater vice of his that Magnus hates. And tonight, God, it feels like his fault.

 

Magnus unknots his fingers from the pillow, covering Alec’s knuckles and gently tugging at Alec’s grip, but Alec won’t give up his prize. His nose presses harder against the shell of Magnus’ ear and he tightens his arm around Magnus’ waist. His clenched fist digs into the plane of Magnus’ stomach, and it’s then, just then, that Magnus feels Alec shake his head, a silent plea.

 

 _Please don’t_ , Alec pleads without saying a word. Whatever is in his hand, Magnus is not allowed to see. Not allowed to see, but is allowed to _feel_ , because Alec drags his hand up Magnus’ chest and opens his palm. He presses the small silver box against Magnus’ sternum, just shy of where his heart weakly beats. He holds it there, like a promise, like a trembling hope, like the last dredges of a willpower he can still summon from somewhere Magnus is infinitely jealous of.

 

Magnus’ throat tightens. Again, he clenches his teeth until his jaw hurts. The box stings in the same way a seraph blade used to light up red beneath his touch; the same way his magic used to feel when it flared crimson and dangerous, sparking in his fingertips; the same way his heart burst when he found Alec lying in that alleyway with his own arrow protruding from between his first and second rib.

 

Whatever it is, whatever Alec presses into him, Magnus doesn’t want it. It’s not enough. It won’t fix this feeling, however hard Alec holds it against him in the dark, as if willing it into Magnus’ skin, into the very fibres of his being. Magnus doesn’t want it. It won’t replace what was lost.

 

He struggles to roll over, wanting to be rid of it, but Alec’s arms loosen without him even asking, and he turns into the shelter of Alec’s chest, drawing himself as close as he possibly can. His fingers find the buttons of Alec’s half-undone dress shirt. It must be creased beyond repair by now, but Magnus can’t bring himself to care, not tonight, not when he can slide his palms beneath the fabric and feel the very real warmth of Alec’s skin against his.

 

Not when he can feel Alec’s blood still pulsing, his heart still beating, his angelic power still gold and gilded in his veins, everything that Magnus _wants_. Not when he can feel all that Alec is, all that has not been taken away.

 

Alec wraps his arms around Magnus’ shoulders again. He’s still holding the little box, but with his other hand, he begins carding his fingers through Magnus’ hair, starting from the nape of his neck and working upwards. His lips ghost against Magnus’ forehead with murmured words too low to hear. Their sentiment is loud.

 

 _I know you want to help_ , Magnus thinks, pushing his nose into the divot of Alec’s throat and pressing his fingertips into Alec’s ribs. Alec, dutiful Alec, says nothing but relinquishes a kiss to the mole above Magnus’ eyebrow. _I know you want to help, I do._

 

Magnus arches his fingers beneath Alec’s shirt. The slope of him is familiar. The rough graze  of his still-healing runes. The flutter of muscles that still react beneath Magnus’ touch, even without -

 

Alec’s body moves with him, answers _to_ him, a braille to Magnus’ blind fingers.

 

 _Even without magic_. That’s how the sentence ends.

 

It’s not enough, but it has to be. Alec’s whispered prayers are all he has left, Alec begging him: just let me be here with you. Please.

 

 _I love you_ , Magnus thinks. He digs his fingertips into Alec’s ribs, but Alec won’t say a word. There are no bruises an iratze won’t fix, even if Alec will bind himself to their poppied ache, in the belief that he deserves to suffer it. He will walk around tomorrow with the purple prints of Magnus’ palms splayed across his chest and stomach beneath his clothes.

 

Magnus knows that same desperation, and he knows it now in the way the ugly, feral part of him wants his hands to sink through Alec’s flesh and for himself to step inside Alec’s skin, bury himself alive inside Alec’s chest, for want of that one solid feeling: wholeness.

 

 _I love you,_ he thinks, clinging tight, _and that’s the only thing I have a name for anymore._

 

 

* * *

 

 

When Magnus wakes again, it’s morning. Barely morning - because the sun is more violet than orange, and dust motes dance in the air, expecting not be seen by waking eyes - but morning nonetheless.

 

Magnus doesn’t hate it. Not as much as he expected. There’s still an ache between his eyes, but he knows a hangover when he feels one, and the taste of death in his mouth is not one that can’t be washed out with water. In retrospect, he’s had far worse.

 

His hearing is muffled, the rustle of sheets a sound better heard from underwater. His body, too, is heavy. That’s not something that will change easily, his arms and legs without the buoyancy they once knew. Leaving this bed will be a struggle; leaving this room, near impossible. His heart is bruised; last night is a spectre beginning to be remembered, lingering on the edge of his periphery, but breakdowns had in the night always have a tendency to seem less fatal come the sunrise.

 

The rose on the bedside table has yet to wilt. In the night, it has turned to face the window, petals unfurled in unrepentant greeting to the sun. There’s no trick of the eye; it’s red, definitely red, definitely blooming.

 

The world is still turning after all.

 

He’s facing away from Alec, tossed and turned in sleeplessness, but now Alec’s arm is slung lazily across his hip and Alec’s snores punctuate the quiet, loud enough to stop the silence ringing. Each puff of breath whispers across the back of Magnus’ neck; each sleepy snuffle makes Magnus’ chest ache with a fondness he will always cling to, a love he cannot be stripped of, however hard the world tries to take and take and take.

 

 _Not this._ It’s another mantra worth repeating. _It won’t take this_. Surely, it’s had enough of him to last a lifetime.

 

The weight of Alec’s arm is familiar. Grounding. Magnus blinks to clear the sleep from his eyes, and it takes a moment for his gaze to focus. He counts the threads in the quilt, he admires the blue embroidery on the pillows, he only squints a little against the sunlight as it grows more bold.

 

The small silver box lies on the mattress before him, nestled between folds in the sheets, dropped from Alec’s hand in the night.

 

Magnus reaches for it before he can think better of it. His touch is clumsy, fingers not as graceful as when he’s touching Alec, and the cold of the silver is a shock, piercing through the film of numbness yet to be washed from his skin.

 

There’s a small latch on the side of the box, so he flicks it, and the lid pops open. Inside, a ring.

 

Magnus has seen this ring before. Maryse used to wear it, and he knows that because he remembers remarking how unnecessarily large and clunky it once looked on her nimble hands, almost comically oversized amongst the rest of her fine silver jewelry.

 

She hasn’t worn it in a long time. Certainly not during the last few occasions Magnus has enjoyed her company, maybe not since the wedding that never was.

 

But now Alec has it. _Now, Alec has it_.

 

Magnus closes the lid with a snap, sucking in a sharp breath. Alec’s suit, the rose, the balcony, and the embossed letter L all rearrange into a brief glimpse of the future, forward.

 

Magnus hasn’t looked that way in the longest time.

 

“It’s yours.”

 

Alec’s whisper catches against his ear, words muddled by sleep. Magnus didn’t feel him stir, his breathing still even, his hand still warm on Magnus’ hip.

 

Only the slightest shiver betrays Alec as he whispers again, “If you want it. If it helps.”

 

Magnus’ eyes feel hot; he blinks wetly against the morning light. He tightens his hand around the ring box until its sharp edges cut lines into his palm. He grips it like Alec gripped it last night.

 

“If you don’t,” Alec continues, rubbing his thumb in concentric circles against the skin of Magnus’ hip, just above the waistband of his pants, “I’ll keep hold of it. That’s okay too.”

 

Magnus voice is hoarse when he finds the only words he can possibly say. “Later,” he rasps, “Keep it for me. For later.”

 

Alec nods, his nose brushing against the side of Magnus’ neck and he hides his face there, his hand squeezing at Magnus’ hip. He can’t hide the trembling, and the vibrations thread through every point at which he touches Magnus, so Magnus feels it too.

 

Alec’s longing, his helplessness, his _hope_ \- Magnus feels all of it, all of it at once, and everything in between.

 

He pushes the ring box back towards Alec’s hand, and Alec takes it, holds it against Magnus’ hip, and the cold of it is contrast to the whirl of Alec’s fingers.

 

It’s tangible. Real. Magnus needs real.

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes u just gotta write the angst, not edit it, and then launch it out into the void
> 
> pls cry with me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/bootheghost) or leave a comment down below ♡ everything is gonna be FINE because i say it is, ok? OK


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